"KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — Malaysia's health minister resigned his cabinet post Wednesday after admitting he had been secretly filmed having sex with a female friend in a hotel room.
Chua Soi Lek, 61, the most senior member of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's government to resign after a sex scandal, announced that he was also stepping down from parliament.
"The people could not accept (the scandal), so to me and my family it was better for me to resign so that I am not a liability to the national leadership," Chua, a married man with three children, told a hastily convened news conference.
"I won't be the first and I won't be the last (politician to be caught in such a situation)," he added. (((Boy, that's for sure.)))
Chua admitted Tuesday that he was in the video, which has been splashed on the front pages of Malaysian newspapers since the DVD started circulating in southern Johor state last week. (((Hit the video black markets, then the newspapers. Typical centipede scheme here.)))
"Chua is vice president of the Malaysian Chinese Association, a key part of Abdullah's coalition government. (((That's why they wanted him out.)))
(...)
"The video is believed to have been taken from closed-circuit television and was recorded two years ago, according to the state news agency Bernama. (...)
"Sex scandals among politicians are not uncommon in Malaysia, with several members of the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) having been forced to resign in recent years.
"Defiant to the last, Chua drew a line between his public and private life, refusing to comment on the incident portrayed in the tape.
"If you want to discuss my private life, please do," he told reporters at his press conference. "Maybe you would like to watch the videotape with me." (((That was a gutsy thing to do – though it's not quite so gutsy as publicly squiring around Carla Bruni, which is starting to look like the smart way to avoid stuff like this.)))i
